“Geography, sir, is ruinous in its effects on the lower classes. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are comparatively safe, but geography invariably leads to revolution.”
(1879 testimony before a Select Committee of the House of Commons, London, England, regarding expenditures of the London School Board)

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Trash | Track

On the eve of the start of our annual high consumption season (and subsequent high waste), this video from Senseable City Lab at MIT shows how trash travels within the United States. Five hundred people in Seattle put GPS tracking devices in 3,000 pieces of trash, and the trash was tracked over time to see where it all ended up, and how long it took to get there. Watch the YouTube video and also check out the visualization on the Senseable City Lab website. Thanks, Tom Paino, for pointing out the link to me. I also love that the video starts out with a quote from one of my all-time favorite authors/books, Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities:

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Welcome to the random notes of the geographer-at-large

This is a blog about maps, GISc, and all things geographical. And, of course, any other place-based topics that strike my fancy at the moment! Please roam around the blog and take a look. Your Host and Raconteur, The Map Monkey.

Globe of the World, carved from a calabash gourd, Museum of the American Indian, Washington DC

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